A Traitor to Memory

by Elizabeth George

  “Well, if he's famous …” Barbara pulled out a smaller box from among the bathing items. She opened it to discover a collection of prescription medicines, all made out to the same person: Sonia Davies.

  “No. This was something of a fiasco,” Lynley told her. “A piece of music for a trio. At Wigmore Hall, this was. He refused to play. He left the platform at the start of the piece, and he hasn't played in public since.”

  “Got his knickers in a twist about something?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Stage fright?”

  “Also possible.” Lynley held up the newspapers: tabloids and broadsheets. “She appears to have collected every article that made mention of it, no matter how small.”

  “Well, she was his mum. What's in the albums?”

  Lynley opened the first of these as Barbara moved to look over his shoulder. More newspaper articles had been preserved inside the leather volumes. These were accompanied by concert programmes, publicity pictures, and brochures for an organisation called East London Conservatory.

  “I wonder exactly why they were estranged,” Barbara asked, seeing all of this.

  “That's certainly the question,” Lynley replied.

  They sorted through the rest of the contents of the boxes and the chest and found that everything inside was associated with either Gideon or Sonia Davies. It was as if, Barbara thought, Eugenie Davies had herself not existed before her children had. It was as if she had ceased to exist when she'd lost them. Except, of course, she'd actually lost only one of them.

  “I expect we're going to have to track down Gideon,” Barbara noted.

  “He's on the list,” Lynley agreed.

  They replaced everything and lowered themselves back into the cottage proper. Lynley pulled the hatch's cover into position. He said, “Fetch those letters from the bedroom, Havers. Let's go over to the Sixty Plus Club. We might be able to fill in some gaps there.”

  Outside, they headed up Friday Street, away from the river, passing opposite Wiley's Books where, Barbara noted, Major Ted Wiley made no effort to hide the fact that he was watching them through the front window, standing just behind a display of picture books. He raised a handkerchief to his face as they moved along the pavement. Crying? Pretending to cry? Or just honking his nose? Barbara couldn't help wondering. Three years was a long time to wait for a commitment, only to be foiled at the end.

  Friday Street was a mixed bag of businesses and residences. It gave way to Duke Street, where Henley Piano Galleries featured a display of violins and violas—along with a guitar, a mandolin, and a banjo—in the window. Lynley said, “Hang on a moment, Barbara,” and sauntered over to study them. Barbara took the opportunity to light a fag, and she gazed at the instruments in collegial cooperation, wondering what she and Lynley were supposed to be seeing.

  She finally said, “What? What?” to Lynley when he continued gazing, his fingers pulling meditatively at his chin.

  He said, “He's like Menuhin. There are all sorts of similarities in their early careers. But one wonders if the family is similar. Menuhin had his parents' complete devotion from the first. If Gideon hadn't—”

  “Menu-who?”

  Lynley glanced her way. “Another prodigy, Havers.” He folded his arms and shifted his weight, preparatory—it seemed—to settling in for a confab on the topic. “It's something to think about: what happens to the parents' lives when they discover they've produced a genius. A set of responsibilities falls upon them entirely different to those faced by the parents of average children. Now take that set of responsibilities and to them add the responsibilities faced by the parents of a different sort of child.”

  “A child like Sonia,” Havers said.

  “Those responsibilities are equally challenging, equally demanding, and equally difficult but in an entirely different way.”

  “But are they equally rewarding to the parents? And if they aren't, how do the parents cope? And what does the daily act of coping do to their marriage?”

  Lynley nodded, looking to the violins again. Considering his words, Barbara wondered how far into his own future he was gazing as he studied the instruments. She hadn't yet mentioned to him the conversation she'd had with his wife on the previous evening. Now didn't seem like the time to do it. But on the other hand, he'd given her an entrée that was tough to ignore. And wouldn't it benefit him to have a friendly ear he could speak his potential concerns into during the months of Helen's pregnancy? He would hardly want to do so with his wife.

  She said, “Bit worried, sir?” and dragged on her Player with marginal apprehension because, although she'd worked in partnership with Lynley for three years, they rarely ventured into the realm of their personal lives in conversation.

  “Worried, Havers?”

  She blew smoke from the side of her mouth, the better to avoid hitting him in the face with it when he turned back to her. She said, “Helen told me last night about … you know. I expect there're worries connected with that. Everyone now and again would have them. You know. I mean …” She rustled her hair and fastened the top button of her pea jacket, which she immediately then unfastened when it felt like a noose.

  Lynley said, “Ah. The baby. Yes.”

  “Scary moments connected with that, I expect.”

  “Moments indeed,” he replied evenly. Then he said, “Let's move on,” and headed round the corner from the piano gallery, the conversation between them dismissed.

  Odd answer, Barbara thought. Odd reaction. And she realised how stereotypical she'd expected to find his response to impending fatherhood. The man had a distinguished family tree. He had a title—no matter how anachronistic it was to have a title in the first place—and a family estate that he'd inherited in his early twenties. Wasn't he supposed to produce an heir to all that in fairly short order after marrying? And shouldn't he be delighted at the prospect of a duty fulfilled within a few months of having taken the marital plunge?

  She frowned, then tossed the dog end of her fag into the street, where it landed in a puddle at the kerb. The volumes one didn't know about men, she thought.

  The Sixty Plus Club was a modest building that sat on one side of a car park in Albert Road, and when they entered, Barbara and Lynley were immediately greeted by a large-toothed woman with red hair who was dressed in a diaphanous flowery affair more suitable for a sunny garden party than for the grey November day outside. She displayed her fearsome oral pearls at them and introduced herself as Georgia Ramsbottom, club secretary, “by unanimous vote for the fifth consecutive year.” Could she assist them? With a parent, perhaps, who might be reluctant to enquire about the club's amenities? A mother recently widowed? A father trying to come to terms with the passing of a beloved spouse? “Sometimes our pensioners”—one of whom she obviously did not consider herself to be, despite the shiny and taut facial flesh that spoke of her efforts to retard the ageing process—“drag their feet a bit when it comes to making life changes, don't they?”

  “Not only pensioners,” Lynley said pleasantly as he produced his warrant card and introduced himself and Barbara.

  “Oh. Goodness me. Sorry. I naturally assumed …” Georgia Rams-bottom lowered her voice. “Police? I don't know that I can assist you. I'm only elected, you see.”

  “Five consecutive years,” Barbara noted helpfully. “Cheers.”

  “Is there something …? But then, you'll want to talk to our Director, won't you. She's not in yet today—I can't think why except to say Eugenie often has pressing business to attend to elsewhere—but I can ring her at home if you wouldn't mind waiting in the games room?”

  She indicated the door through which she herself had come to greet them. Beyond it at small tables, foursomes sat playing cards, twosomes sat playing chess or draughts, and a onesome played Patience with very little of it, if his muttered “Bugger it” was anything to go by. She herself took a step towards a closed office on whose door the word Director was stenciled on a translucent window. She said, �
��I'll just pop in her office and phone her.”

  Lynley said, “You're speaking about Mrs. Davies, I take it?”

  “Eugenie Davies. Yes, of course. She's generally here save for the periods she spends at one of her nursing homes. Very good, is our Eugenie. Very generous. A perfect example of …” She seemed at a loss to complete her metaphor, so she changed gears with, “But if you're looking for her, then you already know …? I mean about her reputation for good works? Because otherwise …”

  “I'm afraid she's dead,” Lynley said.

  “Dead,” Georgia Ramsbottom repeated after a moment during which she stared at them in incomprehension. “Eugenie? Eugenie Davies? Dead?”

  “Yes. Last night. In London.”

  “London? Was she …? What on earth happened? Oh my God, does Teddy know?” Georgia's eyes flicked to the doorway through which Lynley and Barbara had come. Her face said that she was inclined to dash out to bear the bad tidings to Major Wiley posthaste. “He and Eugenie,” she said rapidly and in a low voice as if the card-players in the nearby room might attend to something other than their games. “They were … Well, of course, neither of them ever came out and said directly, but that was Eugenie all over, wasn't it? Very discreet. She wasn't one to divulge the intimate details of her life to just anyone. But one could see when they were together that Ted was besotted with her. And I, for one, was thrilled for them both because although Ted and I were an item ourselves when he first came to Henley, I'd concluded that he wasn't quite right for me, and when I passed him on to Eugenie, I couldn't have been happier that they just seemed to click. Chemistry. That certain something between them that he and I just never had. You know how it is.” She showed her teeth again. “Poor darling Ted. Poor dear man. Such a pleasure, he is. Such a favourite here in the club.”

  “He knows about Mrs. Davies,” Lynley said. “We've spoken to him.”

  “Poor man. First his wife. Now this. My God.” She sighed. “Goodness. I shall have to let everyone know.”

  Barbara wondered fleetingly exactly how much the woman was going to enjoy the employment.

  “If we may have access to her office …” Lynley indicated the room with a nod.

  Georgia Ramsbottom said, “Oh, yes. Oh, of course. It shouldn't be locked. It isn't usually. The phone's in there and if Eugenie's not here and it rings, someone must answer. Naturally. Because some of our members have spouses in nursing homes and a ringing phone could easily mean …” Her voice trailed off meaningfully. She turned the knob and swung the door open, waving Barbara and Lynley inside. She said, “If you wouldn't mind my asking …”

  Lynley hesitated just inside the door. He turned to the woman as Barbara passed by, going to the single desk in the room and lowering herself into the chair. On the desk top was a daily diary, which she slid towards her as Lynley said, “Yes?”

  “Was Ted … Is he …” She seemed to strive for a funereal tone. “Is Ted terribly distraught, Inspector? We're such friends, and one wonders if one should phone immediately? Or perhaps drop by to offer a word of comfort?”

  Good grief, Barbara thought. The corpse wasn't cold yet. But, obviously, when a man came up for grabs, there was no time to waste. As Lynley made all the right well-bred noises about only a friend having the ability to judge the suitability of a phone call or a visit, and as Georgia Ramsbottom took herself off to the netherworld to chew this over, Barbara gave her attention to Eugenie Davies' diary, where she saw that the director of the social club kept herself busy with committee meetings that were associated with club events, visits to places called Quiet Pines, River View, and The Willows which seemed to be nursing homes, engagements with Major Wiley that were indicated by Ted written across a time, and a set of appointments designated by what seemed to be the names of pubs and hotels. These last appeared regularly throughout the year. They were inconsistent as to day and week, but they marked each month of the year at least once. Interestingly, the entries occurred not only in the previous months of the year, not only in the current month, but clear through to the end of the diary, which included the first six months of the coming year as well. Barbara pointed these out to Lynley as he ventured through a personal telephone directory that he'd pulled from the top right-hand drawer of the desk.

  “Standing appointment,” he said.

  “As a pub crawler?” Barbara asked. “A hotel critic? I don't think so. Listen: Catherine Wheel, King's Head, Fox and Glove, Claridges … Now, that's something different. What does that suggest to you? It suggests an assignation to me.”

  “One hotel?”

  “No, there are others. Here's the Astoria. And Lords of the Manor. Le Meridien as well. In town, out of town. She was seeing someone, Inspector, and I'll bet it wasn't Wiley.”

  “Phone the hotels. See if she booked a room.”

  “Grunt work.”

  “One of the job's chief glories.”

  As she placed the calls, Barbara went through the rest of Eugenie Davies' desk. The other drawers contained office supplies: business cards, envelopes and stationery, Sellotape and staples, rubber bands, scissors, pencils, and pens. Filing folders held contracts with suppliers of food products, furniture, computers, and copying equipment. By the time she'd learned from the first of the hotels that there was no record of a Eugenie Davies staying with them, Barbara had also concluded that there was nothing of a personal nature inside her desk.

  She turned her attention to the top of the desk as Lynley bent over a computer that was set in sleep mode. She delved into the dead woman's In tray. Lynley sank into her cyberworld.

  Like the hotels, the In tray, Barbara found, wasn't exactly a fountain of riveting information. It held three applications for membership to the Sixty Plus Club—all from recent widows in their seventies—as well as what appeared to be drafts of announcements for upcoming activities. Barbara whistled softly when she saw what the club had on offer for its members. With the approaching holiday season, the pensioners were scheduling themselves into an admirable round of events: Everything from a coach trip to Bath for dinner and the panto to a New Year's Eve Gala was available. There were cocktail parties, dinners, dances, Boxing Day outings, and midnight church services advertised for the over-sixties crowd who certainly weren't taking their golden years in anything resembling a supine position.

  Behind her, Barbara heard the whir and beep of Eugenie Davies' computer coming out of sleep. She got up and went to the single filing cabinet as Lynley took her place at the desk and swung the chair round to face the computer behind it. The filing cabinet had a lock, but it wasn't fastened, so Barbara pulled open the first drawer and began leafing through the files. These appeared to be largely devoted to correspondence with other pensioners' organisations in the UK. However, there were also documents that dealt with the National Health, with a travel-and-study programme called Elder Hostel, with geriatric issues from Alzheimer's to osteoporosis, and with legal issues surrounding wills, trusts, and investments. A manila folder was devoted to correspondence from the children of adult members of the Sixty Plus Club. Most of these were letters of gratitude and appreciation for what the club was doing to bring Mum or Dad out of his or her shell. A few questioned the devotion Mum or Dad had apparently developed for an organisation unrelated to the immediate family. Barbara pulled this last group out and set them on the desk. No telling if a pensioner's relative had got a bit worried over Mum's or Dad's affection for the director of the club, not to mention where that affection might have led. She checked to make sure none of the letters were signed Wiley. None were, but that didn't mean that the major had no married daughter who'd written to Eugenie.

  One of the files was particularly interesting, as it was filled with photographs of the club during a variety of events. As Barbara flipped through these, she noted that Major Wiley was a frequent subject of the pictures and that he was generally in the company of a woman who hung on his arm, draped herself over his shoulder, or sat in his lap. Georgia Ramsbottom. Dear Teddy. Ah ye
s, Barbara thought. She said, “Inspector,” at the same moment as Lynley said, “Here's something, Havers.”

  Photographs in hand, she went to the computer. She saw that he had accessed the internet and that he'd brought Eugenie Davies' e-mail onto the screen. “She didn't have a password?” Barbara asked as she handed him the pictures.

  “She had,” Lynley said. “But it was easy enough to suss out, all things considered.”

  “One of the kids' names?” Barbara asked.

  “Sonia,” he said, and then a moment later, “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “There's nothing here.”

  “No convenient message threatening her life? No arrangement for a trip to Hampstead? What about an invitation to Le Meridien?”

  “Nothing at all.” Lynley peered at the screen. “How do you trace someone's e-mail, Havers? Might she have old messages hidden somewhere?”

  “You're asking me? I've only just got used to mobile phones.”

  “We need to find them. If they're here.”

  “We'll need to take it, then,” Barbara said. “The computer, sir. There's going to be someone in London who'll be able to sort it out.”

  “There is indeed,” Lynley replied. He sifted through the pictures she'd handed to him, but he didn't appear to give them much attention.

  “Georgia Ramsbottom,” Barbara prompted him. “She and dear Teddy appear to have been quite an item at one time.”

  “Sixty-year-old women running each other down in the road?” Lynley queried.

  “It's a thought,” Barbara said. “I wonder if her car's bashed up.”

  “Somehow I doubt it,” Lynley replied.

  “But we should have a look. I don't think we can—”

  “Yes, yes. We'll have a look. It's bound to be in the car park.” But he sounded dismissive, and Barbara didn't much like it when he set the photographs down summarily and returned to the computer, his mind made up. He logged off Eugenie Davies' e-mail, shut down the machine, and began to unplug it. “Let's trace where Mrs. Davies has been on the internet,” he told her. “No one goes on-line without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.”